Sunday Story: The Lucky Bay Leaf
No recipe today. Instead, a Sunday Story about a clever mom and a gullible child.
I was very young and very fussy.
No. Not so much fussy as discerning. I ate a wide range of food with great pleasure. However, when I disliked something, I was inflexible. Take peas, for example. I hated them with an unreasonable passion. More than once, I sat alone at the dinner table with an uneaten mound of peas on my plate and the oven-timer ticking away on the stove. I would rather go to bed empty than with those green pills in my stomach. My petulant wish was often granted.
One day, Mom served stew for dinner. A few bites in, I found a leathery, brown leaf amidst the chunks of carrots, potatoes, and beef. I pinched it between my thumb and index finger, inspecting it with all the caution and horror of examining a filthy sock for holes. Vacillating between outrage and scientific curiosity, I waved the thing at my mother. “What’s in my food?!?”
Without missing a beat, Mom clapped her hands. “Lucky YOU!” Her voice bounced the length of the table, projecting so much joy and enthusiasm she made a golden retriever look deadpan.
Clap, clap, clap! “You got the bay leaf!”
The rest of the family joined in. Clap, clap, clap.
I wasn’t quite sure how the luck part worked, but I knew from cooking with Mom that there was only one leaf per pot. And it was mine. All mine. That alone convinced me. I, me, the Hard-Done-by Middle Child, got the prized Lucky Bay Leaf.
From that day on, every time stew came to the table, I demanded no one eat until we determined which of us had been blessed with the Lucky Bay Leaf. The mechanics were never fully explained, but the placebo effect applied. Should I find the Lucky Bay Leaf in my bowl, I’d feel invincible. Something good happened? Thank LBL. Something bad happened? Just imagine how terrible it could have been without the leaf’s intervention. To a child who searched the lawn for four-leaf clovers, never disclosed her birthday candle wishes, and had won her share of wishbone pulls, the Lucky Bay Leaf was another tool in her Wish Fulfillment Kit.
Gradually, these wishful rituals faded. Mom no longer dried wishbones after roast chicken dinners. The bay leaf brought a smile and was forgotten before dessert. By the time I went to university, the only remaining ritual was the birthday candle. True to form, I’d do anything for cake.
Long after graduation, I went out to dinner with a best friend, Joanne. We were having dinner in a French restaurant in downtown Toronto. This small-town girl was in The Big Smoke, feeling all grown-up and mature. Perhaps even a touch sophisticated.
Our dinners arrived, and after a few bites, Joanne quietly slipped a bay leaf from her plate, lifting it with her fork so as not to touch it. She tsked with disgust and looked about frantically, trying to figure out where to put the dirty-sock of an herb.
“Lucky you!” I said. Clap, clap, clap. “You got the bay leaf!”
“What?” Joanne looked at me like I was speaking Klingon.
“You got the Lucky Bay Leaf!” Clap, clap, clap.
Silence.
Why wasn’t she excited? Why wasn’t she happy and grateful and filled with the elusive hope of the unknown but brightly joyous future only a bay leaf can bring?
“Lucky Bay Leaf?” She’s never heard of it.
And there, in a fancy French restaurant, in front of my best friend, I realized the truth. In a moment of inspired desperation, Mom had invented the Lucky Bay Leaf. On the spot. To avoid a meltdown at the dinner table. And I’d not only bought it, but I’d polished it and placed it on the mantle.
I started laughing and, between guffaws, told Joanne the story. She dissolved into laughter, too. I’ve no idea what happened to her bay leaf, but we spent the rest of the meal exchanging tales of other childhood misconceptions and sneaky parental tricks.
Her friend was a gullible weirdo. And she was okay with that. I guess we both got lucky.